Plagues, Pestilence, and Other Winter Games
by Elisabeth Harker
Summary: Good headlines usually mean bad news. Thankfully, a bit of influenza isn't anything that the Power of Friendship can't cure. Jack/David, friendship verging on mild slash.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I don't own the Newsies, or any of the character therein. This was written for fun and not profit. _

It was winter in Manhattan, and as David was quickly learning, winter as a newsie meant plagues and pestilence… Well, maybe that was putting things in a somewhat melodramatic way, but so were the headlines that read "Influenza Claims Thousands of New Yorkers" and the accompanying stories that described the Russian Flu of 1889 in gory detail before adding, almost as an afterthought, that nobody in New York had died or experienced "acute symptoms" thus far.

"See, Dave, even the writers improve the truth sometimes," Jack said to him one morning after the third influenza related headline in the month of December. He seemed happy that morning, exhalant at the discovery that they'd have a _good_ headline to work with. David frowned when he read the article, because the comforting tagline had not only disappeared, but been replaced with a few gruesome details of a pregnant lady who'd caught the disease and died during childbirth. He tried not to think about Les, who his mother had kept at home with a cough that almost certainly _wasn't_ any kind of flu, Russian or otherwise.

"Don't tell me you're buying any of it," Jack said, giving him a punch in the shoulder. David just kind of shrugged, because they were sitting on the steps of the World Distribution Center waiting for the others to finish buying their papes, and Race was watching the two of them and smirking.

"I'm buyin' that the Russian Flu was a real knockout of a bug, and the writers ain't got nothin' else to write about," Race said, cigar hanging out of his mouth. "It's like an anniversary special. They're looking up whatever fun event happened ten years ago this time, and pretending it's somethin' new. Just wish they'd thought up the idea earlier."

"It's this or more of that 'New Millennium Countdown'," said Blink. "I mean, what're we even supposed to say 'bout that one? Might as well try our hand at selling calendars."

There was a general murmur of agreement, and a burst or two of laughter, but the group was already starting to break up and disperse for another day of spreading the news around the city. David refolded the paper he'd been reading, and took the hand that Jack offered to pull him up to his feet.

"It sure does stink about that lady though, don't it Davey," Mush said close to his ear just before they set out for the day. David felt something loosen in his chest, which he figured must have meant relief. It was good that _somebody_ at least saw what he did, even if it wasn't Jack.

"Yeah," David said. "It really does."

They parted ways after that, David and Jack going off together as they did every day, and Mush sprinting to catch up with Blink. David did his best to turn off the part of his brain that thought about the news, and just pay attention to the part of him that _sold_ it.

He needn't have bothered. The news practically sold itself, and both he and Jack were out of papes a good two hours before the afternoon edition came out. That was practically unheard of. Besides that, it was a sunny day, and there was snow on the ground, and when Jack threw a ball of it at his back David had no choice but to retaliate.

Half an hour, and a particularly epic snow battle later, and David found it was impossible to be anything but happy. He and Jack had returned to the Horace Greely statue, and now sat shoulder to shoulder upon it.

"You know, I always think about doing that every winter," Jack said, looking satisfied. "Just never have the time, or everyone is sick, or I'm trying not to freeze my ass off."

David just smiled. He considered lying and telling Jack that he hadn't had a snowball fight in awhile either, but the fact was they were hard to avoid with a nine-year-old brother to look after.

"It was fun," he said instead. "We'll have to do it again. Some time when you least expect it, of course, so I can get a head start."

"I wouldn't count on getting that head start. I'm gonna be watching you from now on."

"That's alright. I'm patient."

In that moment a grin broke out on Jack's face that David knew to be anything other than safe.

"Well," he said. "I ain't. So go for it Davey. I'll even let you have the first strike." Jack held up his hands to let David know that he wasn't about to ambush him until he made the first move, but David also knew a challenge when he saw one.

It was in this way that the game began anew. It wasn't very serious, and it wasn't very dignified chasing Jack Kelly through the snow like this, but it wasn't as though David had much of a choice. It also wasn't as though, given a chance to refuse an afternoon like this, he would have.

_OoOoOo_

It was later than usual when David got home from selling papers that night. Jack had convinced him to celebrate the good headline with a meal and drinks at Tibby's, and David had accepted the invitation even if he hadn't accepted the whiskey that was being passed around a bit too liberally for his taste. The snowball fight had left him damp and disheveled and the party after had left him smelling of cigarettes, as he was just about the only one there who didn't smoke. Nonetheless he felt happy, as if the day had been seized, not for other people this time, but as his very own.

That was, until his mother spoke, and David had the good sense to feel at least a little contrite about the day's adventures.

"Look at you! You're soaked! Are you trying to catch your death out there?" His mother exclaimed, disappearing at once into bathroom to fetch dry clothing and a towel.

"I'm fine Mama," David assured her at once, handing over the money he'd made that day. It was a decent amount, even missing the four cents he'd spent on coleslaw. He accepted the towel, and went to the corner quickly to change out of his wet things.

"What on Earth did you do? Fall into a puddle? You should have come home for dry clothes at once. Look at you smiling like that, it was some kind of mischief with Jack, hmm?"

"A snowball fight," David admitted. His mother shook his head, and looked ready to say something, but then Les sprang out of bed.

"Oh boy!" He said, running right up to David. "Did he win? I bet he won."

"Race bet that he would too," David said. "But he didn't. We haven't finished, actually. So far it's a stalemate." He ruffled Les's hair, pulling him back towards his bed. He touched Les's forehead, but there wasn't any sign of fever. "Are you feeling any better?" He asked.

"I wasn't sick to begin with," Les pointed out, folding his arms. "All I did was cough a couple of times, and I had to stay home and miss all of the fun."

"And here I'd thought the two of us had a lovely time," teased Sarah, who was busily working on some embroidery in the chair by Les's bed. David had already sat down cross-legged on his own bed, and taken out the book on Modern Latin that he was meant to be studying each night, in return for his father not going into debt sending him back to school before he found a steady job to support them. He hadn't felt cold running around all day, but he caught himself shivering now, and pulled his blanket up over his shoulders. Les, despite his protestations that he was absolutely fine, was coughing steadily every few minutes. He heard his mother sigh.

"I do worry about Jack," she said. "He has nobody to make sure that he changes into something dry and gets a proper night's rest."

"He knows how to take care of himself," David pointed out, though considering the kind of night Jack was probably having by now, he wasn't so sure. The thought of running back out and making sure that Jack didn't fall asleep in wet clothes after one shot too many of whiskey _did_ cross his mind, but he knew that anything like that on his part would be met with a lot of laughter and not a whole lot of compliance. Instead, to satisfy his desire to worry and do something, he grabbed a cup of hot water from the kitchen and handed it to Les to ease his cough. His little brother shrugged as he took it, but it did quiet him down a bit.

By that point David's concentration was well and truly broken, but that wasn't unusual. It would just be one in another long series of nights where he thought more of newspapers, and New York, and headlines, and most especially Jack Kelly than he did of his Latin homework.

_Notes: Please let me know what you think. I plan to keep this story light and fun, without anybody getting seriously ill. I basically ruined my life FOREVER by being a hypochondriac and looking up flu pandemics and then somehow ending up on websites about Ebola and the Black Plague and did you know that there was totally a plague issue in a province that I go to every summer less than 70 years ago so I'm clearly GOING TO CATCH THE PLAGUE! But anyway, please review this story. Love it? Hate it? Annoyed that it's based entirely around an overused hurt/comfort trope? Feel like it's too slashy or not slashy enough? Feel like this author's note is going on too long and I just need to shut up now? Want to discuss why Weasel, who is clearly an evil character, agrees to spot Race some money at the beginning of the Newsies film even though it's not related to anything in this story? Review! _


	2. Chapter 2

_Notes: This chapter takes place about four days after the previous chapter._

_**Russian Flu Claims Five Victims**_

It was a good headline – just about the best headline possible, in fact. It wasn't like Jack wanted people to wander around getting sick and dying, but it was going to happen anyway, and at least as long as they continued to do it interestingly and he could turn a profit…

Well, it was still terrible actually, and the article was even worse. From what he could tell the disease was hitting the city's poor pretty hard, and whatever idiot writer the World had gotten was framing that as if maybe that was a _good_ thing. Social Darwinism, over-population, _useless_ populations, that kind of crap. When he looked over at David the other boy was frowning as he read, and this time Jack could completely understand why.

"It's like Pulitzer wrote this all by himself," David said, disgust dripping from his voice. "Did you see, one of them was…"

A Queens newsie. Jack had seen.

"You study much about Darwin at school?"

"We're not really supposed to… he isn't… well, I read some things, but it wasn't for school."

"He sounds like an asshole."

"His research wasn't about people, at least not _societies_ of people, like the newspaper said. He…"

"Do I look like I want a lecture on your pal Charles?" Jack snapped, and immediately wished that he hadn't. Usually he would have liked to listen to David go on about this kind of thing, even relished it, but he'd hardly slept at all the night before, and his entire body felt achy and strange. It wasn't like he was worried about it or nothing, but he wasn't in the most patient of moods.

David looked abashed, but only for about a second. After that he seemed to be concentrating intently on Jack's face.

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Great. How many papes you figure we'll sell today?"

David gave him an odd look at that, like he'd just started spouting gibberish.

"Two hundred," Jack answered for him. He was getting really angry now. "That's how many we got. So that's two hundred folks we're gonna be telling they'd be better off if we wasn't alive."

"Alright," David said, "so when we head out there, we could try yelling out 'extra, extra, flu claims five pairs of unnecessary lungs, more air for you!' See what sort of people want to buy it."

"So we can soak them, or just 'cause you wanna get off on feeling superior to them," Skittery asked, giving David a little shove, which Jack ended pretty quickly with a glance in his direction.

"Maybe we will soak 'em," Jack said. "And Dave _is_ better than they is."

"Hey Dave, don't forget to tell 'em about the tutorial on page seven," added Racetrack from his place standing behind them. He smirked at Jack, though Jack didn't know if it was because he'd been so quick to jump to David's defense, or because David had _actually turned_ to page seven. "It teaches all about shining shoes and sweeping chimneys, all those things they won't be able to do for themselves once old Charlie moves in for the slaughter."

"We don't have to sell all two hundred," David said suddenly. When Jack had first met him, he'd had a way of suggesting ideas and plans in this tone that verged on sarcasm, but over the months this sarcasm had given way to a sort of earnestness. David's expression now was open and serious, and that was just enough to keep Jack from rolling his eyes and telling him that there was no sense in buying papers if they weren't going to _sell_ them.

"What're you getting at?" He asked instead.

"Kloppman has scissors, right? And he'd lend them to us if you went back to the lodging house, wouldn't he?"

**OoOoOo**

It took them about an hour to get the article cut out of all of the papers. They'd invited the other Newsies to come, of course, and Race, Blink, and Mush had taken them up on it. A few of the others had liked the idea, but it was winter and they needed food and a warm place to sleep, and nobody was about to begrudge them that. Manhattan had gotten the reputation of being a pretty formidable group during the strike, and though David knew that less than half a dozen of them chopping up an article that they didn't agree with was unlikely to cause much of a stir, he hoped that at least somebody would notice.

A year ago he would have considered getting involved in something like this a waste of time and money. Certainly he wouldn't have organized it. Now… well, maybe somewhere deep down he still worried that this whole thing was an exercise in futility, but Jack had beamed at him when he'd suggested it, and he'd gone from angry with the world to happy in the space of about a split second, just like David had _known_ that he would.

"Just so you know, Mouth, if we don't make enough to stay at the lodge tonight, we's staying at your place," Blink said as they were getting up to go out to sell, having mangled their wares and missed the busiest time first thing in the morning when people were heading to work and the news was still new.

"His little brother is sick. We'll all be goners. " Race pointed out, in a voice that David knew was cheerful only because he'd been keeping anyone who asked updated on what was going on with Les, and though he'd been miserable for a day or two, he was on the mend now. "Good thing the kid's had some book learning. Oughta protect him from the Wrath of Chuck."

"I hope I'm not coming down with anything," said Mush, so quietly that David almost didn't hear him. He suspected that the comment was meant more for Blink than anyone else, but he turned around anyway to see Mush rubbing his neck and looking terribly young and worried.

"You got a fever or something?" Blink asked, making a move to touch his friends' face, only to have him duck away quickly.

"I'm fine. Just worried is all. I never been to school, and don't know much of anything I guess."

"Students are getting it too," David said softly. "Lot's of people from all walks of life are. Those people probably died because they didn't have anybody to look after them."

"Right, and that ain't gonna happen to any of us," Jack said heartily. "We look after each other here."

David found himself smiling at that as he hefted his pile of papers up onto his shoulder.

**OoOoOo**

_Notes: Any guesses who I'm going to go after with the plague hammer? OR, you know, suggestions - for plague hammer attacks, or characterization, or writing in general. _


End file.
